Strawberry Lube
by Just Wolf
Summary: WARNING: Slash, Spike & Xander, also angst, some self-mutilation references. This is set insane-in-the-basement era; Xander brings Spike some blood. No smut.


Strawberry Lube 

Spike smelt. Not in a bad way, but he left behind a certain odour, on the bedclothes, in the sofa, an unnameable scent. Xander thought it was odd. Vampires didn't sweat, after all, and wasn't that the main reason for people to smell? Pheromones, and so on, trapped in bubbles of sweat, which could be scented out. But that, too, wasn't what Spike smelt of. Not sweat, not blood, or piss, or alcohol, not anything that you might expect a vampire to smell of. He just smelt, and Xander, eternally in tune with all the pieces of Spike, could scent him on the air.

He felt like raising his head, wolf like, to the breeze, to drink in the Spike-smell, but gave up on that immediately, knowing it was ridiculous, sentimental. Loving Spike was like doing a jigsaw puzzle when you knew that half the pieces were missing before hand. Xander had never had the patience for jigsaws before Spike, but now, mentally, he constantly slotted all the pieces together in his mind; the smell, the clothes, the blood-stained kisses, the way his eyes flicked continually under his lips when he slept, and the way he mewled when Xander let him touch the pulse-point of his neck.

"I'm insane," Spike had said the night before, in one of the rare moments of clarity that made Xander think he was making the whole thing up. "What's his excuse?"

Once, Xander might've got offended over that. Once he might've come up with a decent quip in reply. But, now, he just couldn't be bothered. He brought blood to the basement that night, the smell of Spike niggling at the edge of his mind all day, and eventually dragging him to the vampire. He wondered, briefly, if Buffy was doing this too.

Spike looked at him through such glazed eyes Xander didn't know whether he saw him or not. Yesterday, it had killed him. He had wanted to beat Spike until he couldn't feel his arms, just so he would Spike would feel something. So he would feel one pinch of how Xander felt, instead of groaning in blissful insanity.

They had never been in love, if that expression can even be used without seeming totally ridiculous. They had always come second for each other, Buffy before Xander, Anya before Spike. But Xander had never smelt Anya if she wasn't beside him; neither had he loved to puzzle her out. She hadn't taken any puzzling, and he had loved her more for that. No sly glances and uneasy smiles, no fangs bared, no pain; not until the end.

But she was gone, and he missed Spike, even, especially, the unknowing, the feeling he was doing something wrong.

"D'you want something?" Spike said, when he had greedily taken the pig's blood bag from Xander's hands.

"No," Xander said. He wanted to say more, but the words caught and choked him.

Spike sucked in his cheeks, and played with the bag in his hands, letting the dark liquid flow up and down in the plastic. They both watched transfixed, as his white fingernails broke the covering and the dark blood seeped out over his fingers, into the grooves of his knuckles, and around the edge of his nails. He squeezed harder, covering the bag, until it broke, and the blood seeped out between his fingers trickling onto the floor.

"Lookie, lookie," he said, in a singsong voice.

"Spike!" Xander cried, standing up. "Why did you do that?"

"Dunno… cos, you know, you saw me, too, didn't you? You saw my face, hate me, hurt me, you saw me…" he mumbled.

Xander didn't reply. He could see Spike's eyes, wild and bright, as he ran down the footpath, his feet slapping on the tarmac. He hadn't known it was Spike in the intelligent part of his brain. But something had told him it was, although the figure had been crazed, and out of control, not like the Spike he knew. Later, that night, he had taken Spike's duster from the banisters. It was in the back of his wardrobe; his shame wouldn't let him look at it.

"Yeah, Spike," Xander mumbled, and he reached out, and touched Spike's cheek. The vampire flinched away, pressing his head between his hands, and moaning.

"Not you, not again, I didn't…" He rocked back and forth, and Xander sat on his haunches, watching him. He lent his head back against the wall, his fingernails pressed into his forehead. Xander could see welts and scars through his open shirt.

"Spike," Xander whispered, tentatively.

The vampire looked at him, leant forward, ran his fingers through his messy hair, and said. "D'you remember the time… with the strawberry lube?"

Xander laughed. "Yeah. Of course I do. Anya did like her fruity lubricants." He paused, watching Spike. "My first time- " he began.

"Taking it up the arse?" Spike said, and laughed.

"Yeah." They sat silent. Spike remembered Xander clinging onto his arm so tightly that he made tiny, bloody crescent moons with his fingernails. He remembered hot breath. Xander reached, out, blindly, his fingers finding Spike's chin, and cupping it. Spike leant forward, and their foreheads touched, their noses bumped, and Xander tried to kiss Spike just as the vampire backed away from him, whacking his head back against the wall, his eyes out focus and gone.

"There's something in my head, love," Spike said. "Something there, nibbling at me, I can feel it, love, you have to help me get it out, it's screaming and screaming and screaming and…"

He grasped Xander's knee, his other arm flailing, his head hitting the wall, again and again, with sickening thuds. Xander disengaged Spike's hand, leapt up, backing away from him, tears stinging his eyes, his brain whirring, he didn't know what to do, he couldn't know what to do.

He turned and ran from the basement, leaving the vampire wailing and screaming, his body convulsing, an uneaten offering of blood in a glistening pool on the floor in front of him.

Later, Spike calmed down. He lapped the drying blood from the basement floor. His tongue rasped on the cold ground, and some small part of his brain wondered where it had come from. He hadn't ever seen anyone.

Xander could smell him still. The Spike scent hung on the air, an unmistakable tang of strawberry lube and semen.

**Author's Note: **this is a rewrite of an old, and really terrible fic of the same name. I've changed everything… except for those fruity lubricants. Hope you enjoyed the angst; it was there instead of badly written sex. Also, Joss owns everything.


End file.
